A visa-free travel deal between the EU and Turkey was on the brink of collapse on Friday night, after Turkey’s president insisted he would not change his country’s anti-terrorism laws, a key condition of the agreement. “We’ll go our way, you go yours,” said Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

When the European commission made a conditional offer of visa-free travel earlier this week, it said Ankara must rewrite its anti-terrorism laws because they were used to prosecute journalists and government critics.

Erdoğan gave a defiant speech the day after Ahmet Davutoğlu stepped down as prime minister and leader of the ruling Justice and Development, or AK, party, over insurmountable differences with the president, in a move interpreted by critics and opposition politicians as a “palace coup”. ...

His departure is a blow to European leaders, who did not hide the fact they were sorry to see him go. “Ahmet Davutoğlu was one of the most reliable and constructive interlocutors between the European Union and the Republic of Turkey,” said Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament.

“I hope that the future Turkish government – whoever will be the next prime minister – will continue that constructive line of cooperation for which Ahmet Davutoğlu was very representative.”

The official line is that Davutoğlu’s departure changes nothing. “Agreements are negotiated with states and governments, not individuals,” Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told Der Spiegel.

But behind the facade of public diplomacy, European leaders will be alarmed by reports that Turkey’s next prime minister will be recruited in Erdoğan’s image. Candidates tipped for the post include Berat Albayrak, the energy minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law. ...

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About Me

A Princeton PhD, was a US diplomat for over 20 years, mostly in Eastern Europe, and was promoted to the Senior Foreign Service in 1997. For the Open World Leadership Center, he speaks with
its delegates from Europe/Eurasia on the topic, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United" (http://johnbrownnotesandessays.blogspot.com/2017/03/notes-and-references-for-discussion-e.html). Affiliated with Georgetown University (http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/jhb7/) for over ten years, he still shares ideas with students about public diplomacy.
The papers of his deceased father -- poet and diplomat John L. Brown -- are stored at Georgetown University Special Collections at the Lauinger Library. They are manuscript materials valuable to scholars interested in post-WWII U.S.-European cultural relations.
This blog is dedicated to him, Dr. John L. Brown, a remarkable linguist/humanist who wrote in the Foreign Service Journal (1964) -- years before "soft power" was ever coined -- that "The CAO [Cultural Affairs Officer] soon comes to realize that his job is really a form of love-making and that making love is never really successful unless both partners are participating."